Game warden cases: Thieves pick wrong vehicle to burglarize

Criminals, like most predators, tend to pick on the weak, vulnerable or clueless; those people are, after all, the easiest marks.

But occasionally, the bad guys exhibit a stunning lack of sense, an unnatural amount of “guts” or a karmic run of bad luck when they choose their marks.

This is most easily seen when criminals, knowingly or unknowingly, make law enforcement officers a target in their nefarious deeds.

Take, for example, the geniuses that, several years ago, swiped a couple of four-wheel all-terrain vehicles from the beds of marked Texas Game Wardens pickups parked in a motel parking lot.

You can imagine the heat focused on those guys. You don’t go stealing stuff from law enforcement officers. They tend to take it personal.

A gang of alleged crooks in the Galveston-area discovered this truth recently when they preyed on what they thought was just another vehicle in a hotel parking lot.

Turns out, the vehicle belonged to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Special Operation Unit, an elite team of game wardens who often conduct undercover investigations as well as work some of the most complicated wildlife, fisheries and natural resource cases handled by the agency.

The incident leads this edition of brief accounts of cases worked by TPWD game wardens over the past week or so. The briefs, lightly edited, are from the weekly field reports TPWD’s regional offices send to TPWD’s Austin headquarters.

Let’s get to it.

• While conducting a covert investigation in the Galveston area, Special Operations Unit investigators had their undercover vehicle burglarized in the hotel parking lot where they were staying.

Putting their original case on hold, the investigators pursued leads from surveillance footage acquired from the hotel where the vehicle burglary took place and a gas station where the suspects used a stolen credit card to fill up three vehicles.

License plates were not legible from video. However, one of the vehicles being filled up with the stolen credit card was identified as a local tow truck.

The day after the burglary, investigators located the tow truck driver and conducted an interview.

The driver identified the three suspects involved in the original burglary.

Local police were contacted, and they informed Special Operations Unit investigators that one of the suspects had local warrants.

SOU investigators and the local PD obtained warrants and went to the suspect’s residence to serve them.

The owner gave officers written consent to search the property. Officers found and recovered the items stolen from the covert vehicle as well as items reported stolen in several other burglaries.

One suspect was taken into custody.

The suspect in custody identified the other two persons involved and provided information on 10 other burglaries committed by the group over the previous couple of days.

Cases pending.

Felony warrants were issued for the two subjects not in custody.

• About 8 a.m. on Aug. 2, Wichita County Sheriff’s Office tried to serve an outstanding warrant on a subject who is well known to game wardens in that area.

As the officers pulled up to the residence, the subject fled on foot into a mesquite pasture located behind the rural residence.

The sheriff’s office contacted Captain Game Warden Pat Canan, as they knew he was familiar with the subject.

Sheriff’s officers searched for the subject with no success.

They interviewed the subject’s girlfriend based on information given to them by Captain Canan.

Wilbarger County Game Warden Dyke McMahen, who was called to assist, obtained a written statement from the girlfriend.

Warden McMahen found three 4-wheelers that had been stolen out of Wilbarger County and seized three sets of deer antlers, two from the residence and one from another residence in Archer County.

About 3:30 p.m., Captain Canan received a phone call from the subject who had fled, stating that he would turn himself in, but only to Captain Canan.

Captain Canan and Warden McMahen drove back to the residence, where the subject surrendered and made a written confession to the case involving the deer shot this past November.

The subject was transported to the Wichita County Jail.

Multiple cases will be filed on the subject for illegal hunting, and cases will be filed on other subjects who were implicated in the illegal hunting and thefts.

• On August 3, Denton County Game Wardens Daron Blackerby, Stormy McCuistion, Glenn Raborn, David Benoit, Chip Daigle, and Wise County Game Warden Chris Dowdy assisted the Department of Public Safety, Cooke County Sheriff’s Department and Gainesville Police Department in a very intricate operation involving a marijuana growing operation in northern Cooke County.

Texas DPS had received a complaint from a landowner at the beginning of the summer stating that trespassers where growing marijuana on his property.

After several months of surveillance, DPS decided to raid the property.

About 5,000 marijuana plants where seized as well as other evidence indicating that individuals were camping out for months, tending to the illegal crop.

Items seized included a generator, sleeping bags, cots, and fertilizer.

Cases pending.

• On July 21, Harris County Game Warden Tim Holland responded to a call concerning a fawn white-tailed deer being raised in a backyard of a residence in Channelview.

Upon arriving at the location, Warden Holland noticed two white-tailed deer fenced in with the chickens in the backyard.

The deer were confiscated and charges are pending.

• On July 29, Upshur County Game Warden David Pellizzari was backing up a Big Sandy Police Department officer when he discovered the skin of a timber rattlesnake on the front porch of a residence. Timber rattlesnakes are considered a threatened species in Texas, and protected by state law.

Pellizzari also found an untagged alligator hide hanging on the wall on the inside of the residence.

The subject claimed somebody gave him both hides, and an investigation continues into who actually killed the alligator.

A citation was issued for the snake skin.

• On August 1, Harrison County Game Wardens Todd Long and Darrin Peeples were contacted by the local sheriff’s office regarding an accident involving a personal watercraft (PWC) on Caddo Lake.

The PWC was pulling a tuber, who was ejected and suffered serious injuries after colliding with a cypress tree along the shoreline.

Statements of witnesses and passengers were taken.

Cases pending.

• On August 3, Harrison County Game Wardens Todd Long and Darrin Peeples were contacted by the local sheriff’s office regarding another boat accident on Caddo Lake.

The accident involved a juvenile skier who after falling from his kneeboard was struck by a passing boater.

Wardens arrived and located the boat operator nearby. The boater stated he never saw the downed skier and had continued driving up river.

The juvenile suffered a deep laceration and was taken to hospital for surgery.